Machine Gun Kelly recently switched things up in a major way with the release of Tickets To My Downfall, a pop-punk revival album produced in entirety by former Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker. With the project already earning acclaim for its nostalgic sound and rockstar spirit, Kelly and Barker took a moment to chop it up with Zane Lowe on Apple Music Beats 1 Radio.
In one of the more revealing moments, Kelly explains how Barker's friendship helped steer him through a dark period. "Throughout this album, I found a much different relationship with my friends and family, and my daughter most importantly, because there was a point when I was recording it, I was just on drunk autopilot," admits MGK. "I was just showing up in the studio with Trav and that was my comfort place. I would just come and like lay sprawled out on the couch for a second and just get straight up and just go record a million lines and take an Adderall and drink a million coffees."
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"When I left Travis', I would feel lost again and I would drive 120 miles an hour home and hope that I get there," he continues. "When I got there, I would just be like, I just can't wait to get back to Travis'. I'm just going to, I'm just going to go out again and I'll wait until my body forces me to go to sleep. Then it got to a point where, later on during the album, it was like I was dropping my kid off to play with Travis' kids. I was getting to see how his home life is the model for what someone like me should be going to achieve."
"Then I found love and then me and Travis would go on runs together and he would be getting my mental together, with that being just real OG stuff," he says, alluding to his recent relationship with actress Megan Fox. "Now we go to grocery stores and get fresh juices together. I have Travis to ultimately thank for all of that. It went much, much deeper than the music, and that was because he opened his heart and his home up to me, because it could have obviously just stayed music, but I needed that figure in my life. I needed like a big homie to calm me down."
No stranger to the rockstar lifestyle and the tolls it can take on a person, Travis Barker offered his own insight into the friendship. "The best thing I could do is lead by example," he explains. "I could still be in the studio, I could still make great albums and have crazy fun times with my friends, but I don't have to do it at the expense of hurting myself or those around me if something happens to me. I really watched him grow, all the way to the end, to the last few months, where he's fallen in love and this relationship means more than anything to him...I just watched him grow over the last six months, in a pace that I've never seen anybody grow like that, and I'm just proud of him."
